


Um...I'm A Sleeper Kind Of What?

by dtbookworm



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Lodge Prank Incident (Until Dawn), F/M, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Friendship, Humor, Romance, Um...awkward
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:47:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27524062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dtbookworm/pseuds/dtbookworm
Summary: Just Ashley confronting Josh and Chris about the thing she overheard them say.....literally ten feet away.
Relationships: Ashley Brown & Chris Hartley & Josh Washington, Ashley Brown/Chris Hartley, Ashley Brown/Josh Washington, Sam Giddings & Matt Taylor
Comments: 1
Kudos: 23





	Um...I'm A Sleeper Kind Of What?

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all. This was a moment I found humorous in the game. I love Chris and Ashley! ❤️

The snow was lazily falling in fat drops, little white flakes that rained down from the night sky as if they were the stars themselves. Ashley breathed in and out, taking in the crisp night air. It really was beautiful up here at the Washington lodge. It felt like one of those serene moments in one of her novels where the character sits alone and reflects on the intricacies of the universe and all that good philosophical shit that people eat up because it tugs at the human heart like a bow to a violin. The nameless protagonist in Eight White Nights reflecting on the snow as he sat by his lonesome in the park at the midnight hour. Astrid in White Oleander when she was constructing diagrams of the families she came across. Moments like those. 

Welp. Guess what. She was one of those freakin' people. And as the violin played, as she heard the lush symphony in her ears as the snow fell, Ashley wondered if Chris was feeling the same way.

Maybe they could finally...

Well, finally...

No. Ashley shook her head and let out a sigh. Yeah, right. Never in a million, trillion, billion, _quadrillion_ years. Sometimes, and only sometimes, in fleeting moments like passing strangers, she wished he were more bold like Jessica, maybe more brave like Sam, and, dare she say it, more outspoken like Emily. The three girls all held prominent positions in there group dynamic, people who'd people be envious of in different ways.

And who would want to be like an auburn haired, skinny, slightly less geekier version of Chris? Nobody, that's for sure.

"Ashley was looking pretty hot today, right?"

The red head snapped out of her daydream and caught her name. It could've been a trick of the wind, the high altitude getting to her sense of hearing. Who said she was hot? Ashley looked around. Nope. It wasn't Sam. She was busy by the gate taking in the crests of the mountains. And Matt was off somewhere, probably joining Sam. And no _way_ it could've been him. He's too much of a sweetheart.

"She's like a sleeper hit kind of gal, you know. I just want to rip that snow parka off of her and make some snow angels, right?"

Ok. That time she _definitely_ heard it. And she recognized that lazy, mischievous voice attached to it. Did Josh _really_ just _say_ that? And why was he talking to Chris about it? Ok, she got it. Sometimes, being the girl in their circle meant that she was excluded from the frathouse banter that both boys shared, but they weren't talking about some slutty sorority girl. No, they were talking about her. Ashley "Scaredy Cat" Brown: Academic, Inquisitive....and Forthright as fuck. 

Ashley stood so fast that her knees popped. With balled up fists, she trotted down the remaining steps and followed the boys in the direction of the side of the lodge. Snow crunched under her boots as she stormed the corner and caught Chris leaning his head back and saying, "Alright, alright, I got it. Jeez."

Gasping, Ashley stopped. Was Chris actually, truly, making fun of her? Like, genuinely? And what the hell was a sleeper kind of girl? And why was Chris smiling now, his face turned toward the sky smiling that toothy, shit eating grin? Ok. Time for some action.

" _What_ did you say Josh?" Ashley said, her hands on her hips. 

Chris turned abruptly and he lost his grin in an instant. He hadn't realized that Josh had spoken so loudly. What led Josh to saying those things at that _exact_ place literally ten feet away from Ashley, Chris didn’t know. But his heart thudded in his chest as she took in Pissed Off Ashley, an Ashley that made him even more nervous because she was only truly angry with him when he did something wrong. Blazing green eyes, balled up fists. Nose flaring. Granted, she looked more like an agitated dear, but her brash appearance made him stiffen up nonetheless. Josh on the other hand, turned more melodramatically, like a mafia leader spinning around in his leather chair as slowly as he can. "Well, hello, Ashley. Have you come to join us in getting into my family's lodge?"

Ashley locked eyes on him. "What did you just say?"

Josh shook his head and crossed his arms over his puffer jacket. "Tisk, tisk, tisk. Such a shame. First, Chris loses his eyesight, now Ashley loses her hearing. If I lose my voice, I wouldn't know what to do with myself. My voice? Smooth AF. Basically ear sex."

"Don't play dumb." Ashley pointed a bare finger at Josh. "Do you think I'm stupid?"

"Something wrong Ash?" Chris said, his voice wavering like he was caught cheating on a test.

Josh patted Chris's back. "Cochise. _Obviously_ she just wants us to reassure the her two, _fine,_ strong, and very _fine_ specimens of manliness," he showcased himself as if he was America's Next Top Model, "were ok and not in any danger."

Ashley wasn't having any of this. While she tried to take on the "There Are Two Sides To Every Story" approach when she was reading, this was a different. This wasn't a book, wasn't some video game where it allowed you to switch characters to increase empathy for the characters. No, this was real life and in real life, Ashley was timid with an emotional time bomb. "Did you seriously think I wouldn't hear you? I mean, I know you guys are morons, but really?"

Chris stuttered, his lips trembling. "Wha-what do you mean?" He looked to Josh who only smiled cooly at her as if she was telling him the weather "A...hear...hear what?"

"Yes, Ms. Brown, our literate counterpart, _whatever do you mean_?" Josh asked, fluttering his eyelashes like a reincarnated Betty Boop.

Ashley cleared her throat. "What's...what's a Sleeper Hit Girl? Huh?"

"You heard that?" Chris was turning darker by the second, his pale skin taking on the color of strawberries.

"Wha-yes I heard it!" She extended her arm to the stairs where she was previously lost in a daydream. "I was, like, ten _freaking_ feet away you dolts!"

Both boys looked over her shoulder. Sure as shit on a Ritz cracker, there were the stairs where she sat. All Chris could let out was an amoeba sized, gone with the wind. "Oh."

"Yep. Oh. So I'm not gonna ask you guys again. What. Is. A. Sleeper. Kind. Of. Girl? And don't _lie_ to me." Tears were beginning to form. They weren't ready to spill over her eyelids. No, they were at the back of her eyes, becoming bigger like water balloons in a low pressured sink. "Don't. Lie."

Chris wished he could disappear into the bottom of a hole in the base of the Challenger Deep. He could feel himself being erased from Ashley's life, disappearing and evaporating like a puddle under the summer sun. Chances and maybes being thrown into a blender and becoming nothing salvable. No more of them watching independent movies Ashley liked so much. No more of her reading to him in that educated, yet dreamy voice when she got lost in a fictional world. A world without Ashley was a world without shooting stars. No more wishing they could be anything more. "Ash...that...I....it's...."

Josh interrupted. His smile didn't leave his face, but his eyes relaxed into something calm, something sincere that said way more than words could. "Ashley." He wrapped his around her and squeezed her shoulder. "You know we love you. Don't know why because it takes strength to love the grammar police, but somehow on God's green and shitty world, we do. So I'm not gonna lie to you. Because _Chris_ is gonna tell you instead. Trust me. It's much, _much_ better if you hear it from him."

"You're the one who brought it up!" Chris shouted.

"Hello? Talking. Shh." He stared at Ash with eyes that oscillated emerald light and in them Ashley found something protective, but still playful? Or maybe nonchalance? She could never pin him. He was a cork in the ocean and trying to pinpoint _exactly_ where he was was a mystery within itself. "Look, Ash. Do you honestly think we'd hurt you?"

Ashley felt guilt mixed with uncertainty as she looked between Josh and Chris, the boys who befriended her and expanded her universe. These boys sat through her English Jam when her short story was nominated and she read loud in front of an audience. They were there, making sure she wouldn't buckle. These were the same boys who kept her company at night when she was scared to be alone, being stupid but in a good way that let her know there was still decency in the world. They were lighthouses, shining light through her foggy mind when she was lost and uncertain, keeping the darkness at bay.

But...they were talking about her. A Sleeper Hit Girl? She couldn't shake it.

"Well." Josh straightened his spine and held the lapels of his puffer jacket. "I'll leave you two starlings to talk." Josh brushed past Chris, but not before he turned to him. "And I do mean _talk_."

Josh rounded the corner and Chris and Ashley were left alone. The snow fell into Ashley's eyes, but she didn't make a move to shoo them away. The trees branches around them swayed and creaked under the weight of the falling droplets. "Chris?" She said softly through the snow.

Chris could barely look at her. Being small wasn't easy when he was six foot and towered over Ashley like a building in Chicago. "Yeah."

"Are you going to explain what a Sleeper Girl is to me?"

Shit. Chris was getting warmer and now he wished that he didn't wear a collared shirt, a green sweater, _and_ a big ass winter coat to follow."Well, it's..." He looked into Ashley's eyes, even more lovely as they were becoming more aqueous. "It's kind of an urban term, not really in the encyclopedia."

"I figured."

"So, it's basically...um, well, a girl who's not striking....to, um, begin with." Chris waited for her to hit him or cry, but she stood there somewhere in the middle. "It's only after a second or third look you realize that they're..." He swallowed, watching the snow melt into her hair. "That they're beautiful."

"So what?" She shrugged a _that's it?_ shrug. "It takes two, maybe three looks to see if I'm pretty or not?" She felt stupid. She never was the one to care about her appearance. Maybe an eyeshadow or a gloss lipstick, but other than that, nothing. "Chris, I know I'm not beautiful like Jess or Sam, but..."

"Hey, hold on. I didn't say you _weren't_. Are you nuts?" Chris stepped closer toward her. "Josh was just being..."

"Josh?"

"Exactly. He was trying to get a rise out of me."

"A rise?" Ashley braved herself and stepped closer to him. "And why would he do that?"

Words felt jangled and intertwined like rosaries in his throat. If he was going to get through to the doe eyed girl, he'd have to choose his words carefully. He now wished that he payed attention to the way she read books, how beautiful the author's words were. But that's the thing. He wasn't an author. He wasn't creative, wasn't a writer from England. He was Chris Hartley: Protective, Humorous, and Methodical. "Well, because, I don't think your beautiful."

Ashley widened her eyes before Chris realized his mistake and quickly atoned. "No, no, no. Not like in the conventional sense? Like, sure _anyone_ could throw on a low cut shirt or a mini skirt or lipstick and act all super confident and everything, but that's not you. You're different."

Her mouth began to tremor. Ashley found herself more curious, more wanting to know. "Different? Different how?"

"Because you're not like like other girls. Not mainstream or anything. I like the way you call me out when I be using bad grammar."

" _I'm_." She said.

"See. That right there. That's what I like." He smiled tentatively. "And I like the way you look at the big picture of things. I like the way you nerd out when you talk about a favorite scene from a movie. And who else can rock leggings _and_ shorts? Even though, you know, the shorts kind of defeat the purpose of the cold."

"Says the person wearing three different layers with no hat _or_ gloves."

"Touch."

Ashley groaned, her earlier apprehension going away. " _Touchè._ "

"Ashley Brown. Language."

They both laughed. The air around them was more breathable and they just settled into looking at each other. Ashley felt a yearning in her chest the way he looked her. Those blue eyes were shining like the sky and Rigel created two twins. In return, Chris felt a syrupy liquid coat his heart when she looked at him. It was like a lighter was lit underneath his heart, melting it over his ribcage and onto his stomach. The two were oblivious to the world around them, the moment tailor made like a fine three piece suit. Stitched in time.

Out of nowhere, Ashley charged towards Chris. He thought that that was it. Maybe she was still pissed about the "Sleeper Girl" comment josh no so subtly said. So when Ashley wrapped her arms around his neck, her fingerless gloves tickling the back off it, he froze at first. Then, with a snail's pace, he lifted his own arms and wrapped them around her lower back. He breathed her in and she smelled of apples right for the picking with a slight dust of cinnamon. Ashley was swimming in a sea of something vaguely vanilla scented like one of the candles she read by at night. The two were gemstones engraved into each other's hearts, their bodies welded together like monuments, their love for each other as high as the mountains around them scraping the sky.

"So...I have one more question," Ashley said, her voice muffled.

"What's that?" Chris's heart beating rapidly.

"You said before 'Alright, alright, I got it.' What was that about?"

"Oh. That?" He didn't remove his arms from around her. "He was, well, telling me to..." Josh's words rang in his ear. _You've laid all the ground work, you've been the perfect gentleman. Now you come in FOR THE KILL._ "Um. Make. Uh, make a move."

Ashley studied him and his eyes were intense, blue fires igniting the wicker of her heart. "Make a move? Hmm." Ashley used her finger and brushed the side of his neck. "And, may I be so bold as to ask on who?"

Chris didn't answer her. The next thing he knew, he was leaning down, trying to get to her height. Ashley craned her neck so that he could easily lean down. His kiss was tentative at first, pulling away two seconds later. Then he went in again and he held her tighter as if drawing her closer to his heart. Ashley stood on her tiptoes, electrified by the sensation of his lips on hers. The snow wasn't as cold as the fire in her burned away any doubt. She felt light, weightless, like a balloon drifting towards the deep vacuum of space and beyond that.

When they pulled away, they only stared at each other, but still held on. "Well," Ashley said, her smile infectious, "my buns aren't so cold anymore,"

Chris snorted. "Well, nobody likes cold buns."

"Ain't that the truth," a voice said from somewhere outside their universe.

Chris and Ashley looked simultaneously at Josh with his ankles crossed leaning against a tree. Next to him were Matt and Sam, both with approving smiles on their faces. 

"Finally," Sam said, flashing a warm smile at Ashley. "Way to go, hon."

"Yeah. For real," Matt laughed, turning to Sam. "Thought those two would never get on with it."

"Same."

Chris groaned as Ashley felt liberated and embarrassed all the same. "Jeez, guys," he said. "A _little_ privacy maybe?"

"Yeah, hard to _not_ see you two getting busy in the _middle_ of the goddamn path," Josh said, rubbing his hands together. "C'mon Cochise. Still gotta help me find a way in."

"You _still_ haven't found a way in?" Sam groaned, her hand on her hip. "At this point, I'm ready to just ask Matt to ram down the door."

Matt smiled. "Hey, I mean, I'll do it. I'm not quarterback for nothing." He shuffled his feet and pantomimed dodging other players."I can come through with the quickness."

Josh cleared his throat. "Nope. No. No need for more damage, Matt Attack."

"Please. Just. No." Matt shook his head as Sam laughed into his shoulder. "Don't make that my nickname."

Sam and Matt went back to the front of the lodge, both of them stealing looks at the new couple.

Taking advantage, and feeling a million tons more braver now that Chris had his arm around her waist, Ashley asked. "Yeah, before you guys do _that_ I have a question."

" _That's_ surprising," Josh said sarcastically. "But you may ask."

Ashley released herself from Chris's hold and stepped toward him. "So...earlier...what was that comment about making snow angels?" She lifted her eyebrow and fixed him a sly grin. "What's that about?"

Oh _snap_. Now it was Josh's turn to stutter. His caramel complexion turned darker. He looked to Chris for help, for SOS. "Cochise?"

"You better answer her, man." Chris smiled at his new girlfriend. Girlfriend. He liked that _a lot_. "My girlfriend's relentless."

"Well?" Ashley pressed. "Fess up."

Josh only looked between Chris and Ashley. Then he bolted. Just ran through the snow, arms pumping, past Matt and Sam.

"Should we go after him?" Chris said, scooping up a handful of snow and forming a ball.

"Oh yeah." Ashley did the same. "He'll be making a snow angel when he's knocked onto the ground. 

They ran after Josh, screaming for him to come back. The only thing keeping them together, making sure neither of them fell behind, was their hands holding onto each other. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! tay tuned to my longer story "A Dork In Shining Armor" starring Jessica and Chris!


End file.
